Rodents, flies, cockroaches, and other nuisance insects and animals (hereafter referred to collectively as “pests”) create health concerns and introduce spoilage, among other concerns. Many businesses deploy a variety of traps and/or monitors throughout the business' physical premises and facilities to insure a reduction and/or elimination of such pests. These actions can be undertaken to insure inspection compliance, to maintain sanitary conditions, reduce spoilage, comply with applicable laws and regulations, and/or increase consumer confidence. Even upon complete elimination of pests from a physical site, however, the pests can often find their way back into the premises. For example, open doors, windows or loading docks, cracks in foundations, delivery of contaminated materials or packaging, etc., may all provide an avenue for access back into the premises. Therefore, even if the pests are reduced or eliminated, pest traps are continuously used in order to detect the presence of pest activity.
More specifically with regard to flying insects, there is a need in the art to detect the presence of these pests. Spreading large amounts of pesticides over broad areas to control flying insects without regard to whether there are actually insects in the area is undesirable. To reduce the risk of inadvertent human contact with the pesticides, a more directed application limited to those areas where the insects are detected is preferable. Also, if traps are used in addition to the pesticides (or in lieu of pesticides), there is a time cost associated with checking each trap. Depending on the facility in which the insect control takes place, the presence of a large number of traps can also be unsightly or inappropriate. Therefore, detecting the number and location of the insects, as well as determining the true source of the pest activity (e.g., open doors, etc.), is advantageous since a targeted pesticide application and/or trapping strategy can be developed.
Prior methods of detecting pests include utilizing a single beam of light that is incident on a detector. This type of application is typically found in environments where a limited point of access is available—such as in a beehive entrance. However, due to the limited entrance zone in which pests will trip the light beam, this type of system has significant drawbacks and will not work when an area needs to be monitored. Another system employed in the prior art to detect pests is thermal detection. One example is the IR detection system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,445,301 issued to Farrell et al. However, flying insects are not generally sensed by such thermal systems. Accordingly, each of the prior art systems has drawbacks in detecting flying insects.
The current flytraps used in pest control service employ several methods of immobilizing flying insects. A service technician during routine service cleans the trap and may make a note of the extent of activity at the trap based on visual inspection. This standard method of pest control service has a number of limitations. Of primary importance to customers and pest control companies is verifying that technicians actually visited the trap and did not simply conjure up false information. A second limitation is that activity (i.e., a count of insects) is only trackable to the time between services, such as monthly or weekly. Since the data is not real-time activity, it cannot be broken down into daily or hourly counts. This limitation prevents the implementation of proactive solution of problems (e.g., such as employees leaving doors open) and the targeted response to known problems (e.g., such as discarding potentially contaminated products based on pest activity). Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide both real-time data logging and communication of additional trap parameters (e.g., service activity).
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a flying insect detecting system. Such a system would preferably be arranged and configured to be used as either a passive detector and/or as a part of a combined sensor and trap. The device should also provide both real-time data logging and communication of additional trap parameters (e.g., service activity). The present invention overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art and addresses these needs in the art.